The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Automatic test equipment (ATE) for testing electronic circuits typically operate under control of a set of instructions called a test program. The test program is loaded in an ATE tester and executes in the hardware of the tester, which generally includes an embedded processor (e.g., a workstation-class microprocessor or any other microcontroller). The embedded processor is often referred to as a central processing unit (CPU) that performs higher-level data management and control functions for the tester. Test programs on a tester for testing large and complex circuits are generally large and complex themselves. These test programs require extensive development and debugging effort by numerous test design engineers. The test programs have to be developed quickly and accurately to meet rapid development times for prototype and production circuits. A program development and execution environment for ATE test programs play an important role in the success of these efforts.
Testers have evolved over the years. Many testers have substantial investments in test programs and programming environments. Software for legacy systems cannot simply be replaced by new programming technology because it embodies capabilities that can take a large engineering effort to duplicate in its entirety. On the other hand, legacy systems, being based on old technologies, tend to fail to meet current expectations for performance, features, ease of use, stability, and reliability.